


The link between us

by Shadowdianne



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 17:18:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8809348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/Shadowdianne
Summary: Emma's true love kiss wakes Henry up but leaves Storybrooke still under the dark curse and with only four occupants knowing the truth about the town; Henry, Regina, Rumple and Emma herself. With magic loose once again and the ever growing feeling that something is lurking in the shadows Emma ends up paired up with someone that Henry claims to be the Evil Queen and who utterly despises her... Or not?





	1. Chapter 1

PART 1

Emma opened her eyes, letting out a sob as she felt the air of her lungs being sucked out as she parted her lips again, letting her tongue peek between them as Henry’s eyelids fluttered open, a slightly dizzy sensation washing over her. Behind her the rest of the people inside the room, Whale, Regina, the nurses, stood in complete awed silence as the boy blinked more rapidly before trying to smile at his blonde mother.

“It can’t be…” She heard being whispered by the doctor who Emma didn’t even bother looking at as she was still focused solely on the pre-teen, her green eyes searching for any clue that the debilitating illness that had been present on his body ever since a very few moments ago wasn’t there, waiting to attack at any given moment.

“Henry…” She whispered, her lips trembling as she tried to smile, another choked sob coming out of her mouth as she tried to keep standing, still hovering over the boy’s bed, the touch of the cold sheets below her fingers enough to make her bite down her lower lip, the full meaning of what just had happened hitting her like a train. “Henry, you were right, you…” Her voice wavered at that moment as the boy’s eyes, hooded and tired, looked at the figure that now loomed over the two of them.

“Mom?” The boy asked in a fragile, strained voice, and for a moment Emma stood in silence, dumbfounded, before she realized who the boy was referring to. Tilting her head, she turned to look at Regina, the brunette woman hugging her own midriff with hands that displayed the scratches of their recent fight on the supply closet. The dark eyes of the woman were glazed due to the tears and for a moment the anger Emma had felt for the mayor seemed to subside as Regina blinked, giving a slight minute step towards the bed where Emma was still perched at.

“Henry…” Regina said, mirroring the desperate whisper Emma had emitted just a second before. Her chest seemed constricted and Emma blinked at the sight of the terrible, strong woman crumbling even more before her eyes than she had even done on the closet.

With a start she realized that the things August had told her, about the curse, about her destiny, the things that Regina had even confirmed, were in fact real and for a moment she stood there, looking at Regina biting her lips, those covered in tiny million cuts she suddenly found herself staring at, but without actually realizing what she was doing.

“Sheriff, Mayor.” Whale’s voice boomed between the three of them, Henry still too weak to look directly at the doctor as both Emma’s and Regina’s heads turned towards the man who stood as tall as he was before motioning the nurses around him to get back to work. “I need you out of here. Considering what has just happened I will first check Henry’s vitals, be sure of what had happened.”

“I won’t leave my son alone.” Regina replied succinctly, fiery and with the borders of her eyes rimmed with red. Emma nodded alongside with her, squeezing the boy’s arm once before facing the doctor, her momentarily self-doubt and fear forgotten as she looked at Whale.

“What she said.” She supplied through gritted teeth. There were many things she knew she still didn’t know about Henry but the smell of hospitals, the sight of them, were something that had been on her subconscious’ terror enough to know that she should never leave a child alone, not like that.

“I will be quick.” The doctor replied as he rose his chin, his arms raising as well in a placating move as both brunette and blonde woman seeming about to roast him just for the suggestion. “Is simple procedure but I need you out so you don’t interfere with the nurses’ work. I promise that after that Henry will be free to have as many visits as possible.”

Both women looked at each other, their animosity clouding their eyes as they nodded thought, the idea of not leaving Henry’s side appealing to both of them.

“I will be fine.” The boy’s voice rose between then with a small cough that made his chest -till covered in tubes- to tremble. The sight of the boy, so little in the middle of the now seemingly far too large bed made Emma nod, noticing on her periphery how the mayor seemed to also nod reluctantly.

“I will be outside then, okay Henry?” Regina replied, her voice fragile but still commanding enough for Emma to close her hands into tight fists. “Just call if you need anything.”

“I will also be there kid.” Emma added, her teeth closing audibly as she turned, leaving the boy’s side after she squeezed his arm one more time before walking around Regina who made a motion to come closer to the pre-teen before turning as well, the muttered “I love you.” She said behind the blonde eliciting a groan and her fury as Whale closed the door behind them, the glass rattling with the movement as Emma finally turned, looking directly as Regina’s eyes once again.

The mayor -and former monarch Emma considered fleetingly- was crossing her arms once again, this time her hands tightly closed around her forearms, boarding her shoulders and looking ready for a continuation of their previous fight. A defiant glint shone on her eyes still stained with slowly drying tears and Emma licked her lips as she took on the sight of the brunette, her own ire growing inside her chest as the notion that Henry was in fact alive and well slowly sunk into her mind.

“He is alive.” She finally said, her voice far stronger than what she would have had herself credit for. The words made Regina nod for a moment before she approached one of the chairs that stood in front of the glass wall. Inside, three nurses were hovering over Henry and for a moment the brunette, now turned to look at the boy, seemed ready to burst inside the place. With a sigh, however, her shoulders shagged and she sat on the uncomfortable looking chair, head turned back towards Emma as the blonde followed the lead of the mayor, elbows resting on her knees, hands hanging limply from between her legs. “He is, right? Alive and well. This is not one of your tricks.”

Regina’s eyes burned with wrath as she looked at her, her own posture far primer than Emma, one leg crossed over the other, arms still crossed in front of her chest, back as straight as possible as she stared down at Emma. The woman’s red lips curled in disgust and Emma’s jaw locked, readying herself for another fight. One, she knew, she would take gladly.

“I know you perceive me as some kind of Demon, miss Swan but I can assure you that I would never endanger my son.”

“So we are here because he decided to eat a simple pastry?” Emma retorted, lips curling and transforming into a very fine line as she felt the ire inside her chest grow once again. Clenching her fists, she narrowed her eyes until they were slits. The waiting room was oddly quiet around them but the soft echo of machines and the voice of Whale at the other side of the glasses made her look above Regina’s head, where Henry was dutifully answering whatever Whale was asking him to.

Looking back at Regina Emma motioned towards the room with her chin, the muscles on her neck bulging as she swallowed. “You told me the truth.” She said gravelly. “Or have you forgotten?”

Narrowing her own eyes Regina bared her teeth for a moment, seeming about to skin Emma alive, before she recoiled back on the seat. “I would never do anything to him on purpose.” She replied in a whisper, her voice bleeding hurt. “I would never hurt him. He is my son.”

“No, he is not.” Emma replied back, pushing the brunette’s words aside, not wanting to hear them. Her hands were still tingling due to the touch of the Once Upon a Time book and the visions were still dancing on the back of her mind, each one of them bearing a truth she found far too big to wear. “Don’t even dare to start.”

“Because you know who he is, right miss Swan?” Regina bit back as strongly as Emma, her eyes glowing. “You know what would you need to answer if Whale asked us if Henry is allergic to something, you would know what to do in case he needs to stay the night here. You would know all of that, wouldn’t you?”

The questions didn’t sit well on Emma’s mind, her lips trembling as she half-stood from the sit, fury blinding her. Regina, however, didn’t even flinch and it was precisely her stare what had Emma stop, half-movement, in mid-air before she let her body fall down on the chair.

“He is my son.” Regina insisted. “I will never harm him, no matter what I would need to do.”

“You have a very curious form to prove that. “The blonde noted icily. Her answer eliciting something close to a snort from the brunette.

“I may have made a lot of mistakes in my life, sheriff.” She finally said slowly, enunciating each of her words as clear as possible. “But I love him, no matter what.”

Emma stared at the woman she had known as the mayor and whose other story, the story Henry had talked about once and again to the point of extenuation, seeming now to overlap in front of her. The Evil Queen, the curse… such ideas made her feel dizzy and for that she gulped down a big intake of breath.

“Tell me about the curse.” Emma said instead of keeping with Regina’s words, not wanting to even acknowledge the woman’s form, the way the brunette’s back seemed strained, her eyes’ fire now looking tired and less fiery than before. “You told Henry that he was crazy, didn’t you? But he was right all along. You are the Evil Queen.”

The epithet seemed to made the brunette tremble and for a moment Emma pursed her lips together, wondering if she had indeed gone too far. Ultimately, however, the muffled sound of Whale’s voice seemed to be enough for the brunette to straight her back and nod briefly towards Emma, seeming to answer an inaudible question the blonde herself hadn’t even done.

“I was the Queen, yes.” Regina replied, her voice and accent changing ever so slightly, becoming something Emma had sawn glimpses off at times when the older woman had been blindsided by fury but not as obvious as then. “The curse… was supposed to be able to hold anything, to keep everyone trapped here where I would be able to rule over them all.”

“And what about Henry?” Emma pressed on. “He wasn’t on the curse, he said that time had stopped for everyone here, right? But not for him.”

“No, not for him.” Regina admitted, voice somber and eyes suddenly dark.

The idea that put on both women heads kept them silent for a few more seconds; Emma staring at Regina, Regina staring at her interlaced fingers that, sitting atop her knees, seemed to hold much more importance than the blonde’s green eyes she felt burning on her skin from across the room.

“I love him.” She repeated, almost broken, defeated and the very sight of such formidable woman speaking like that made Emma pause.

“I know.” She replied, mulling over her words and offering just the barest of nods to Regina’s direction when the brunette looked up, uncertainty glowing on her irises. “But tell me about the curse, he is awake, right? Does this mean… the curse is… it’s gone?”

The broken persona of the brunette was replaced by a much more cold-looking woman who seemed about to bite and growl at Emma. The whole posture of Regina shifted and the blonde swallowed thickly as she saw the way the brunette’s neck muscles to bulge, tension settling on them as quickly as they had appeared.

“A true love kiss can just break one single curse at a time.” The brunette finally recited, her voice droning as if she was a scholar that was just reading aloud a particular text she was supposed to have memorized. Emma realized with a start that that could perfectly be the case considering how little she knew about the so called Evil Queen and for a moment a wave of remorse washed over her, thinking on the many times Henry had asked her to read the book just so they could plan the operation as it was supposed to be. “Your kiss woke Henry up but the other curse… the one that keeps them all away from their true identities is still sealed.”

“And why is that I know then?” Emma pressed in, the answer making her forgot momentarily about her reserves, her whole body trembling at the realization that it wasn’t just the fact of the magic or that what Henry had been said about the woman that was seated across her may be true but also the tales about her parents, about Mary Margaret, about… “My… Snow White? Is she…?”

“They all think they are their alternative personas, yes. You know because you weren’t built in the curse but rather escaped it.” Regina confirmed with a heavy sigh, wishing for a second to be able to evaporate herself to Henry’s side and avoid the questions she knew she was going to get. “The curse wasn’t made to be broken like this. Perhaps if you had kissed… Henry in another circumstances.”

“So I can still break it.” Emma replied, her mind spinning. The whole concept of magic was in itself strange but knowing she was able to yield so much power because some silly prophecy made her nauseous. She had always built her own life without not help whatsoever from the people around her. Saying the path ahead of her almost pre-written made her bite down on her own tongue strong enough for her to taste her blood as she swallowed down the painful gasp that came out of her the second she realized what she was doing.

Regina, however, didn’t seem in any better shape and for a moment she almost seemed ready to cackle sadly at the blonde’s words before nodding ever so slowly.

“Yes, but I wouldn’t be very smart if I told the savior, the one pointed to be my ending how she would need to break my curse, am I right?”

“It’s not like you have anything else to work with.” Emma replied and for a moment it all seemed like a few hours before, before Emma knew about curses and magic and all she needed to worry about was the petty woman seated in front of her. “I still don’t understand why you went there, why you didn’t let me go. I told you that I was going to leave, that I wanted to end things.”

“Henry wasn’t going to forget about you just because you were gone.” The brunette replied succinctly. “Magic was my last resort.”

“Magic you don’t really have anymore.”

* * *

 

Gold took a step backwards while raising his arm in front of Belle, eyes fixed in the purple mist that kept rising out of the well, the smell of magic and power already dancing on the air, swallowing everything next to them, changing the very same air they breathed. With a rush he felt his own power returning, a fragile link to his old life, one that he felt growing stronger with every breath he took, with every second that passed. The magic rose, purple tendrils caressing the grass at their feet as Belle took a few more steps backwards, eyes unable to look away from the mist even though for very different reason’s than Rumple’s.

Because yes, he was Rumplestiskin, not Gold, not anymore.

“What is this?” The brunette asked in a trembling voice, eyes lighted up by the sparks that run up and down the mist darkest hues, the light lines glistening as they crackled.

“Our escape.” Rumple replied with a giddy smile he found himself unable to even resist. The darker color of the light, however, made the smile look far more sinister than what he had intended and the air around him changed drastically the very second the mist run down the hill, covering every speck of the woods with it. “Our hope.”

-.-

Regina was about to answer the blonde’s comment when she felt the tingling sensation on her fingertips, the pull inside herself that made her heart beat faster as she felt a shudder climbing up her spine, calling for a knowledge that had been resting for far many too years. Smiling secretly at an incensed-looking Emma she nodded, raising her chin just like a Queen would do.

She could have lost the battle, she decided as she battled her eyelashes at the blonde’s direction, but not the war.

“No, I most certainly don’t have any more magic.”

Emma narrowed her eyes, feeling already a single powerful rush on the back of her head that normally signaled trouble. She was about to ask more about magic and the actual curse when Whale came out of Henry’s room, looking at Regina while nodding curtly before glancing at the blonde herself.

“He seems fine, no side effects and he is asking for a milkshake. I think you can enter.”

Regina got up, tasting the feeling of knowing to have the upper hand on that one, before she glanced at the dejected looking blonde who -after getting up as quickly as she had realized the door was open- was silently sitting on the uncomfortable chair once again.

“Something else you need to tell me?” She asked, hiding a smirk when Emma’s green eyes looked at her, a growl already trapped on her teeth. The next words, however, rooted her on the spot.

“Let me enter with you.”

“Excuse me?”

Whale stood between the two of them, as awkward as possible with one hand already touching the brunette’s forearm, something Regina shook it off of her with one single cold glance before she turned to Emma, lips pursed and turned into one fine line the blonde eyed briefly before standing as tall as she was. “You’ve heard me, let me enter with you.”

“He is my son, miss Swan. Legally I’m the one that ultimately decides who he can see while in Hospital and who he can’t”

Whale emitted one single sound that could have been understood in both sides of the argument and Emma nodded, hands already on her jeans pockets. “And I know that, Regina. But if you ever want help with the situation that is about to happen once he starts making questions, if you really want to be a team… I want to enter there.”

Regina eyed the younger woman, the joy she had felt before dissolving quickly on the back of her pupils as she pondered the options.

“You win.” She finally replied, the sound of her voice eliciting a smile from the blonde. “For now.”

* * *

 

Gold eyed the sign that divided Storybrooke from the rest of the world; an invisible line that has been there for far too many years. Looking at Belle the man who had once upon a time be called the Dark One smiled triumphantly. Raising one hand he offered it to Belle who glanced at it once before taking it, smiling back still slightly uneasy but calm.

“Where are we going?” She had asked when Gold, once again with magic at his grasp, had appeared them both at the city line, cane already forgotten.

“To the other side.” Gold had replied and he repeated the words now, the thought of finally be free to search for his long lost son fueling his will. He was done with deals, he thought firmly, today was the time he would be finally be able to do what he should have done all those years ago.

The leaves on the trees that flanked both sides of the road seemed to rustle impatiently as the couple eyed the road that extended before them, seeming to stare back at them with its plainness. The air around the Storybrooke sign, however, had changed and Rumple felt for a signal second his will wavering, the knowledge that with ne last step he would be without powers once again making her feel dizzy. And weak. Something he hated.

Still, he considered, closing his jaw as tightly as possible, his son was at the other side of the line. They could always go back into Storybrooke’s magic once they were all together. Or perhaps extend magic all over that world. Whatever that came first. Staring at Belle once again he drawled a slow smirk and leaped.

Only to find the barrier as intact as before and possibly even more reinforced if the sparks that came out of it when both Belle and him tried to cross it were any indication.

Spitting out of rage Gold turned towards the city that could be seen at their end of the road, the purple mist he had enacted still seeming to tint the air. The curse, he realized, the curse hadn’t been broken. Not yet.

With a growl he gripped Belle’s arm as the woman tried to ask him what had happened and disappeared from the town’s line, the Storybrooke sign the only witness to his rage.

* * *

 

Emma took a deep breath as she splayed her fingers over her thighs, mentally preparing herself as she stood in front of the -still- mayor of Storybrooke.

After Regina had let her enter inside Henry’s room she had hugged the boy tightly before letting him go under the hawk-like gaze of Regina who had still smirked tauntingly at her before asking Whale if Henry was already free to go. The doctor, who Emma found herself thinking what kind of fable-character could he be- had looked at his noted before asking Henry how he felt answering Regina’s question in the very same brass way Emma had come to associate the man with.

“He can go, as long as he doesn’t exert himself.” Emma wasn’t exactly sure that that would be the procedure if the boy would have been any other’s son but the mayor’s but Regina, alongside with the curse, still carried such importance within the town and in a few minutes both Regina and Henry had been ushered out the room with only a spare glance towards Emma, the blonde promising after them that she would go to visit Henry soon enough.

And there she was, Emma thought, nibbling her lower lip, feeling the already raw line she had drawn on her own skin protest ever so slightly at the contact. In front of the house who she had recently discovered as the Evil Queen. Who had cursed an entire kingdom, transforming it into a somewhat little town in the middle of nowhere. The very same notion made her laugh but as she had been readying herself on the apartment she had also realized that she had been living with her mother, the one she had once thought to never be able to find. The thought alone had put a knot on her neck and she had merely looked at Mary Margaret once before grabbing her keys, the other woman looking sad and worn out. A look that Emma found now even more unsettling as she was now able to see pieces of her in that other face.

That, however, she thought while looking at the white door of Regina’s house, was something she would need to deal later. Not now. With that final resolve she rose her hand and knocked the door twice, knowing the sound alone would probably irk the brunette woman inside. A pleasure she decided to enjoy.

As if on cue Regina’s eyes shone in distaste as she opened the main door, one hand already on her hips -still clad and that power suit- and the other on the edge of the door, one brow raising at the sight of the blonde sheriff. 

“There is no strayed cat on my backyard that needs to be saved, sheriff.” She said with just the barest of smirks quirking her lips.

“I doubt any cat would come closer to this place.” Emma quipped brashly, hands at her hips, the sheriff badge still on display at her waist. The weight of it felt different now, stranger, and she had indeed had doubts when she had come back to the hospital, her hands playing with the badge, tossing it over and over again as she had pondered on the real importance of it, of what it had meant for her to become sheriff of a town she had once thought to be small and plain. Regina, however, didn’t need to know any of that and for that she had kept the badge, alongside with what that brought to her. “I’m here to talk.”

“Henry is doing his homework.” Regina replied in a hiss, her stance seeming to become larger. Back when Emma had first seen Regina the woman had only seemed a preoccupied mother who later had become the annoying mayor Emma had started to have doubts of her sanity and goodwill as the weeks had progressed. However, in that moment, Emma could see the Queen in the way Regina stood and looked at her, all hard and dark edges that seemed to burn and for that she swallowed, shaking herself out of it and denying herself the chance to look weaker in front of the other woman.

“I told you I was going to ask for him.” She finally answered with a tilt of her own chin, glad she had her boots, the ones that helped her gain an extra leverage on Regina’s impossible pumps. “And I still have questions.”

“I’m sure of it.” Regina replied while narrowing her eyes, almost transforming them into slits. “You Charmings are always lost, but I’m not a library miss Swan, you can’t come and ask for information every time you want it so.”

“If I recall below the library there is a dead dragon right now.” Regina seemed to shiver at that but Emma kept going. “Something I suspect Henry will learn soon enough, with his book’s help or without it. I want to know everything that isn’t in that book. Curse or not.”

The brunette pursed her lips one before looking over her shoulder, seeming to be sure that no ten-year-old was crouched around the corner listening to their every word. Which Emma supposed was far enough.

“I still don’t trust you.” She decided to press on. “But we need each other.”

 _And I’ve let you keep Henry at this house._ She thought, the idea looming between them.

That seemed to be it because Regina emitted what could only have been described as a growl and nodded curtly before setting her eyes back on Emma, the red of her lips seeming to glow under the warm lights of the hall.

“What do you want to know? I’m afraid that details of how to break the curse won’t be discussed here Miss Swan though. I’m not a moron and the nuns are at the other side of the main road, not here.”

“I’m not here for that.” Not exactly at least, Emma added inwardly. The details of how the curse could be broken intrigued her. The thought of not only her… Mary Margaret, but also everyone else inside Storybrooke cursed to be outside time for so very long haunted her. Still, magic was something she had thought to be an impossible just until a very few hours ago and if she wanted to understand better how to break the curse she was going to need to understand how it worked. Which only led her to Regina.

Meanwhile the former queen was curling her fingers, tasting the feeling of the force she had come to associate with magic seeming to jump from tip to tip of he every finger and pore. It had been too long since she had had a taste of magic and she had feel as if drunk ever since her talk with the blonde in front of her. Details of how her magic had returned to her were still a mystery; once she intended to learn about as soon as possible, but with the blonde sheriff hovering over her like a shadow the trip to her vault was going to need to wait.

“Then what is what you want?” She found herself asking, the question echoing between the two women, Regina suspecting that Henry was already snooping around. The boy had barely talked with her, remaining tight lipped when Regina, once out of sight of everyone else, had hugged him tightly -even more so than before at the Hospital- and had whispered wetly how much he loved him, the words of her mother echoing inside of her about weakness and love, words she had found smashing them to pieces as she held onto the boy for just another second.

Henry hadn’t answered though, no matter how much she had tried to press him to do it and guilt had been rampant inside of her ever since. She realized she knew very well what she wanted, even if Emma Swan -was it Charming now?- ignored it and she decided to play with it before the blonde realized really how much leverage she truly had over her. A movement she had picked from her mother: When powerless make them think on the power they fear you have.

“I’m here for Henry.” The blonde finally replied, her voice strong enough for it to ring on Regina’s ears.

Touching the roof of her mouth with her tongue the brunette feigned tiredness -something that she really didn’t need to feign that much to be truthful- as she moved away from the door, gesturing Emma inside.

“We will better be talking about this at the study miss Swan. If you may…”

The blonde looked around her, seemingly confused to Regina’s change of tune, before motioning inside, the door closing tightly behind her as Regina moved inwards the hall, her strides seeming as sure and steady as they had seemed the very same day they had met. This time, however, the blonde could see the real tiredness bleeding out the other woman’s movements and for a second she thought on calling Regina out of her bluff. For some reason, however, she didn’t.

“Waiting something sheriff?” The brunette’s voice echoed towards her and the blonde’s lips quirked.

“I guess that now I know who you are I expected to discover some kind of evil lair where you transformed yourself in that decrepit hag.”

Regina found herself amused to the thought and turned, lips so glossy Emma found herself staring at them before looking back at the older woman’s eyes. “So many inaccuracies… Or do you live surrounded by animals with Snow White so close?”

The question, albeit said in the same scorching manner Emma was already comfortable to speak at Regina with, seemed to hide a real interest on it and for it Emma answered as truthfully as possible. “Mary Margaret loves animals. I don’t think I would have found it so strange if that would have been the case.”

“Fair enough.” Regina replied with a smirk. The answer elicited different ones in Emma, questions she had found asking herself when she had finally closed the door of the apartment; questions about her mother, about who her mother really was, about how much of themselves Regina -The Queen didn’t sound right, not to her, no matter what- had put in Storybrooke’s inhabitants.

Such question, however, didn’t ever reach out of her mouth since her phone began to ring. Annoyed at the caller she picked it up only to growl as she recognized the number that was displayed on it.

“Leroy.” She answered while looking at Regina, the woman’s back resting at one of the doorjambs that would led them to the brunette’s study. “I’m kind of busy right now.”

“Sorry sister but you need to be busy at the main street.” The gruff man replied without missing a beat. His words weren’t slurred and for that Emma decided to listen the following ones. “There is a wolf here.”

“A wolf?” She asked outload, not realizing Regina’s eyes widened, something close to a purple spark escaping her fingertips.

“If I would have needed something to repeat my words I would have called Smee and asked for his parrot.” The answer came by between two deep breaths; the man seemed to be walking quickly and Emma let out the jibe pass as he kept going. “It appeared next to Granny’s. It hadn’t attacked yet but it’s big, sister, really big. I don’t want to know what it will be able to do if it starts to feel hungry.”

“Have you called David?”

“Frankly, sister, I doubt the animal shelter is going to cut it. Bring your gun and do something before anything starts, will you? Granny says she hasn’t seen Ruby ever since this afternoon, so perhaps that’s something you should also worry about.”

The line went dead, one final curse escaping the man’s lips that Emma didn’t manage to catch and for that the blonde turned towards Regina, the woman’s arms now tightly crossed in front of her as she stared at her.

“There is a wolf wandering the main street.” Emma provided hurriedly before she glanced at her right, where the staircase that led to the bedrooms stood. It seemed that Henry would need to wait as well as her questions. “Ruby is missing too and I think Leroy has called me a parrot.”

“A fitting description, I should listen to those dwarves more often.” Regina replied quickly, far too quickly perhaps but Emma was already preoccupied enough to not notice it. Nor the epithet of dwarf.

“Anyway I should…”

And with that the blonde was gone, main door not closed properly and the sound of that awful yellow bug echoing through the slowly darkening road.

“Mom?”

Regina turned towards that sound, her beaming smile at the sound of being called like that being soon overruled but the yet cautious glance Henry directed at her. The boy was still angry and a part of Regina, the one that wasn’t nor mayor nor Queen, understood him far too well, the doubts her own mother had nestled inside of her returning to her seeming stronger now that the curse was starting to waver.

Still, “mom” was a word she relished on and for that the brunette swallowed her pain and answered to it while the boy moved closer, clad in pajamas and looking about to tuck himself into bed. Something Regina knew that wouldn’t Happen-Henry never slept unless he had read at least a few chapters of whatever book he found himself dragged into- but she still found herself enjoying nevertheless; the illusion of everything still being just the same as before the blonde had arrived to town something she decided to hold onto.

The illusion, though, was broken into pieces as Henry pointed at her fingers, the purple sparks of her power still glowing there, albeit smaller. “If you have magic I think you know who the wolf is.”

And the truth was that Regina hadn’t really sparse a thought about how if her own magic was back that meant some other magic-infused creatures that lived in Storybrooke were also going to endure having their abilities back. Henry, however, seemed to have already be able to see far beyond her. An idea that would have filled her with pride at any other given situation but not in that one.

“Henry…” She started, trying to placate the boy, crouching ever so slightly in front of him so she could look straightly into his eyes. The purple mist disappeared from her fingers but the rush was still there, running up her veins and for a moment her flesh seemed to glow.

“I’ve read the book mom.” The boy replied, lower lip jutting, looking just like Regina remembered him when he was about to weep. This time, however, they weren’t tears what came out of his eyes but hardness and Regina’s knees faltered at the sight. “Emma doesn’t know about it but we do. You should help her.”

There were many thing Regina could have said to that statement, many things that if any other person inside the city would have been the one to utter them most of them would have been made into a threat format. The voice of her son was something else though and for that she stood ever so slowly, eyes never leaving Henry as the boy kept looking at her, kept daring her. A part of her wondered if she couldn’t lie to him; let the annoying blonde deal with what she suspected now was going to probably be a furious werewolf and just claim she had arrived too late to do anything but recollect whatever that was left of Emma Swan. It would be the easiest way to deal with the problem: be sure that the blonde was truly gone and for that her curse safe and unbroken. She was tempted, tempted in the same way her magic seemed to chant inside of her. However, she realized that lying would only anger the boy she was now staring at even more. And with so little time the reality that he could learn the truth of Regina’s passivity was a possibility far too real to actually tell a lie that wouldn’t dissolve into thin air. For all of that she nibbled the flesh of the inner part of her lower lip before nodding tersely.

“If I do this will you promise me you won’t run away?”

“If I get to see her, yes.”

Regina sighed but settled with it, there would be plenty of other times in where she would be able to show to Henry how Miss Swan was unable to care for him the same way she was, she was sure of it.

* * *

 

Emma stared open-mouthed at what probably was the largest wolf she had ever seen; way bigger than the one responsible for her crash at the city line the enormous ashen-colored wolf was crouched at the far end of the alley the backdoor of Granny’s led to. Its teeth, white and definetely very sharp-looking glimpsed through its open muzzle and its eyes glowed white under the flashlights’’ lights the group that was by now surrounding it carried with them.

“Finally.” Leroy’s gruff voice awoke her from her reverie and when she turned she was met with the man’s serious face. Storybrooke’s drunkard hands were steady as he handed Emma an already lighted flashlight before moving closer, spewing every single detail he could muster. “I didn’t see it coming but Granny said that she saw it sometime before seven, just about when Ruby’s shift is normally over but the girl has been gone ever since this morning. A headache or something like that. Granny assumed she was at one of the rooms at the place but they are all empty.”

“Is there any clue apart from…?” Emma stalled as they walked closer to the group, a few of them glancing at her, muttering between them words Emma wasn’t really sure she wanted to hear; she had been openly proclaimed sheriff of the city but one thing were words and another actions and she had the feeling that the ones around them were already waiting for some kind of action.

“The wolf? Not that I know of. For what we all know The girl is with some of her boyfriends having a good time but the wolf is here and she isn’t.”

Emma nodded slowly, rising the torch as careful as possible once they reached the first row of Storybrooke’s neighbors, the wolf seeming to look at them confusedly from its spot at the alley.

“Any attacks?”

“Nothing, yet, but with the amount of time you are taking we are as well as devoured already.”

The answer had been said not by Grumpy but by an impeccably dressed man whose cold eyes made Emma narrow hers.

“I came as quickly as possible, and since we are at it you shouldn’t be standing this close.”

There were many other things she should have said to the man; the lawyer’s suit making her think back at her time at the prison, on the people she had met with that very same condescending air around them. Seeing him hold his hands in defeat and take a few dutiful steps back made her smile slightly as the rest of the first row followed the man’s example.

“Is David here?” She finally turned towards Leroy, the man shrugging quickly at the question. Question Emma swallowed bitterly, the notion that David was possibly her father looming over her, making her dizzy.

“I told you sister, I don’t think we need any kind of animal shelter here, best thing we can do is shot this beast and be sure that no one is killed by it.” Leroy’s reply made her focus once again on the problem they had between their hands; a possibly murderous wolf and a missed girl.

“I will be the one deciding that.” The blonde answered, lips pursed into a fine, white line. The wolf growled loudly at them but didn’t it didn’t move a millimeter from where it was as Emma placed her boots firmly at the floor, the smell of the alley seeming to become more poignant as she took a deep breath; scared but trying her best to hide it.

In the last 48 hours she had come to the realization not only that magic existed but the things she had considered that weren’t nothing more but imaginative tales from Henry’s mind were also equally alive. A wolf, she decided, magical or not, wasn’t going to scare her more than that.

Perhaps, she decided, if she managed to keep the wolf as calm as possible while asking Leroy to disperse the group she would have enough time to think for a following step. Maybe even Ruby showed up.

The thought of the cheerful, lanky brunette being anything other than fine making her insides revolt. Henry had claimed that the girl was Red Riding Hood, an idea that even now seeming dubious; Ruby certainly didn’t look like the children’s heroine Emma could remember briefly from the sparse good houses in where she had been told stories but she would be damned if she didn’t find the brunette. Red Riding Hood or not.

With that thought in mind she whispered to Leroy the command to keep everyone as far as the dinner’s alley as possible and squared her shoulders, the change on her stance eliciting another growl, this time stronger, from the crouched wolf. Moving ever so slowly she took a few steps towards the beast, the rest of the group seeming to hold their breaths at her back as the wolf in front of her bared its teeth, drops of spit rolling down the thick fur around its jaws, bloodshot eyes following every move.

“Sometimes, sheriff, I think trying to get rid of you is a waist seeing how hard you seem to work on killing yourself.” Said a deep soft voice at her back that made Emma falter, the noisy group murmurs raising once again, questions of “How has she arrived there?” Reaching Emma’s ears as she, very carefully and still glancing at the wolf every few seconds turned her neck just enough to see the silhouette of a certain brunette mayor at her back.

“I’m trying…” She started defensively as the sound of steps came to her, Regina coming to her side, arms crossed over her torso as she eyed the creature in front of her, muscles bulging out of the fur-covered paws. The wolf’s patience was running thin and Emma lost track of her own sentence as she looked at it, quickly trying to assess the situation.

Regina, however, seemed more curious than worry and for a moment Emma thought she had seen some sort of smirk crossing the brunette’s face before the older woman’s features returned to their usual smug look Emma was already accustomed to.

“To get yourself killed.” Regina answered, making Emma blink, her own muscles starting to burn as she followed the wolf’s paws when the creature moved slightly to their left, bumping into a garbage can and tumbling it in the process. The metallic sound of the can against the concrete sound caused Emma to bit her upper lip, hands closed into fists, suddenly taking the amount of mass the wolf was actually capable to move.

“Is not like I’ve had other wolves like this one to practice what was needed to be done.” She found herself answering back, her protest feeble enough to feel her skin flush hot and red, the heat-wave coming from her neck, climbing up her ears were it took residence as she kept her eyes perfectly trained on the wolf, now unmoving but still growling, its shadow painting figures at both sides of the alley that seemed to watch over the two of them. If she strained her ears Emma was able to hear Leroy’s voice reminding people how they needed to stay away from such a beast but every sound outside the alley seemed to come underwater and she found herself swallow another gulp of rancid, stalled air that did nothing to calm her sudden nerves.

Regina herself -Emma discovered as she glanced towards the brunette at her side, dark eyes blazing- didn’t seem to be as sure as her stance had first seemed and the younger woman took a little bit of guilty pleasure on that before she saw that, below that surface of fear and worry Regina’s eyes seemed to be unfocused, sparkling purple dots seeming to gleam just at the edge of her irises. “Regina?” She half-whispered, hoping that the brunette decided to humor her and answer her call. When that didn’t happen she insisted a second time, the fur around the jaws beginning to curl as the wolf lowered its head, triangle-shaped ears plastered to its skull. “Regina? Is not that I’m not grateful but… you should step back.”

“And let you do what, sheriff? Tremble a little bit more until the werewolf grows tired enough to not eat you?”

“I don… Wait a minute, werewolf?”

Regina’s shoulders shagged before she nodded, Henry’s words still echoing on her mind. A part of her had wanted to keep lying to the blonde, maybe even help her but never admitting how her powers were back. That option, however, was impossible anymore and she needed a few more seconds before she schooled her features, eyes still trained on the wolf and throat tight as she did her best to keep reading -what she suspected was Ruby’s- mood.

“It seems that with Henry’s curse gone another creature were also… liberated from the curse. Magic is back on this land or, at least, inside the city lines.”

“So you have magic.”

Regina’s eyes glowed one more time before she nodded, the wolf’s pupils seeming to also notice the change as its tongue peeked between its jaws, a low growl grumbling inside its chest.

“I do. And apparently not only my magic is back but also the one that kept the creatures… from being creatures is active once again as well.”

“So you lied to me before, at the Hospital.”

Regina scoffed. “Because you are sure you would have told me everything I would have wanted to know if our positions would have been reversed.”

It was Emma’s turn to bare her teeth in fury and for a second she wondered to just walk away from the scene, leave Regina and the wolf alone. Such idea, though, was short lived and she closed her eyelids for a moment to keep her mind clear only to re-open them again when the wolf emitted something close to a long growl that almost seemed to dim into a whimper at the end of it.

“Who is this then if it’s not only a wolf?” She asked, lips barely moving, a drop of sweat running down the nape of her neck, her hair there seeming to stick alongside her skin.

Regina remained silent for a few more seconds, stance unchanged but eyes hard as they followed the wolf’s movements.

“Miss Lucas.” She finally admitted, shoulders trembling, decision made.

Emma gaped at the information, the wolf merely growling stronger at the mention of that name, its -no, her- name.

“Ruby is inside that thing? But she is red riding hood, not the wolf!”

It was probably a good thing that she had asked Leroy to keep everyone outside the alley, Emma thought as she saw one single brow arch on Regina’s face. Otherwise, she surmised with a somewhat grim expression, she would have already been declared bananas.

“As much as I despise the book, miss Swan,” Regina enunciated slowly, her hands seeming to flutter in front of her, a mist coming out of every inch of her fingers. “You should read it.”

With those last words Regina seemed to push the air around her, a satin-like cloak appearing between her fingers, the red color it was knitted on seeming to shine for a second under Emma’s widened eyes. Gratefully, the alley was dark enough for the group to not be able to tell what the brunette had just done but the wolf had and her back was now arching, seeming ready to pounce.

“Regina?” Emma asked, feeling suddenly even more unprepared than before. Regina, however, seemed to be in another different place and it actually took her a couple of seconds to refocus once again on the task at hand: the taste of magic, of a real, even if a little bit simple, spell making her feel unstoppable. “Regina!”

That second hissed time did the trick and Regina hardened her features as she widened her stance as much as possible, the cloak pouring from her hands almost feeling alive, its nature calling the one of the wolf.

“Careful miss Swan.” She whispered through gritted teeth. “I’m going to take a step closer, you best cover me or you will be the next thing in which I’m going to try my magic on.”

The threat, of course, was meaningless since even if she had managed to bring the cloak she had known beforehand Rumplestiskin himself had stored back at his pawnshop her powers were still lacking and she felt unable to perform another feat like the one she had already done but Emma didn’t need to know that.

Nor did the werewolf in front of them. She suspected than, as her magic, the power wasn’t running smoothly inside Red and for that the creature in front of them had more of a beast than a real person. Which only added difficulty to what she was about to do.

For Henry, she thought before she threw the cloak blindly in front of her, sensing more than seeing Emma’s sudden hitch on her breath as the moved -strangely on synch- in order for herself to be as hidden from the part of Storybrooke-cursed ones as possible.

The cloak fell just atop the wolf’s head, Regina looking somehow fascinated to the changes that accompanied instantly the body of the creature; she had heard many things about the wolf back at her days as a queen, the war at its peak and battles being fought between the tall trees of the enchanted forest, where Red’s wolf had been feared by its men and transformed into almost a mythical figure for those that dared to speak near her earshot back at night. Still, the transformation, even if she had heard it being told a thousand of times and she herself had studied about it back when she had been nothing more but an apprentice, was something than she found fascinated by it and she actually needed a moment to recollect herself as the blonde at her back dragged a ragged “wow” out of her mouth before taking a step closer, her boots scraping against the floor.

There, where the wolf had been standing a sleeping Ruby laid, body covered by the cloak and brunette tresses shadowing her features, drawing curling lines alongside her neck and cheeks.

“We need to bring her inside.” She instructed, the feeling of using her magic coming back to her, the prize being soon her already depleted reserves of energy as she felt the feet below her feet seem to be about to swallow her. “I doubt she will be able to remember a single thing without actually being awoken out of the curse but we don’t want to have her start asking questions.”

Emma seemed about to argue with that logic but luckily she remained silent, still probably trying to grasp what had just happened.

“What more is then awakening with magic back?” She asked the moment Ruby was back at her bed, the people already scattered by a grumbling Leroy who had looked skeptically at both of them when Emma had declared that the wolf had been taken care off.

_“Nothing is never that easy, sister”_

The feeling of tiredness remained and due to that Regina needed a few seconds before answering, the face of a one single person appearing on her mind’s eye.

“The man I’m suspecting it’s the one behind its return.” She answered contritely. Although she at first had thought that magic was only a side effect of the sleep potion being bested the notion now seemed foolish and since she didn’t consider the fairies intelligent enough to even create anything that could actually help them to have their powers back-not without their memories in the first place- there was only a third option beside herself.

“Gold.”

Regina almost laughed at the way Emma’s lips seemed to curl in distaste around the imp’s name. The man had already done an everlasting impression on the blonde; something Regina was sure that it was going soon to take a turn for the worst.

“Rumplestiskin.” She confirmed with a nod, and even if a part of her knew that her deal with Henry was already dealt with she knew she needed to stand next to Snow White’s offspring a little while longer.

Because if Rumplestiskin had wanted his own magic back nothing good could come from it.

* * *

 

Rumplestiskin had been waiting for them, cane near even though he really didn’t need it anymore. After the town’s line fiasco, he had felt like an animal in a cage, his mind going over and over again over the details of not only the dark curse but the true love’s essence he had used, levering, thinking and plotting. Belle, after trying to talk him out of his musings, had finally fallen asleep and the man had promptly puffed her back at his house, away from the pawn’s shop in where he stood now. When the door of the shop opened even if he had left it closed he turned towards it with a smirk already growing on his lips, not surprised in the slightest when he saw both Emma and Regina standing in front of him.

“You took your time.” He declared, hands resting at the counter’s surface, teeth gleaming in the dim light the small lamp he had lighted when he had first entered there casted between the three of them.

“You, however, didn’t.” Regina replied and for a second the man, the Dark One, tilted his head before he turned to stare at Emma, the blonde’s eyes obscured by dark circles. “You’ve brought magic back to this world, haven’t you?”

The accusation was enough for Rumplestiskin to smile crookedly; Regina had always been his favorite pupil, intelligent enough to see through his schemes. However, the curse hadn’t done any favors to the former queen in that regard.

“As I’ve said, you took your time.” He repeated, his voice cold as he lowered his head just enough for the light to cast lines at both sides of her eyes, sharpening his features even more. “You disappoint me, Regina, such idea would have already been obvious to you.”

Regina stared back at him with venom on her eyes, eyes that seemed to shone purple for a second before it diluted back into the usual dark brown.

“I understand that you wanted the leverage.” The brunette said succinctly.

“It has its perks.” The man replied, not willing to give any more information. Regina could be softer than the woman he remembered her being but she wasn’t stupid and now that he hadn’t been able to leave Storybrooke behind he truly needed the upper hand. “How is Henry by the way?”

Both Emma’s and Regina’s features hardened and Rumple snickered, pleased with himself.

“Don’t play with me.” The former queen seethed, taking step closer to the counter where the man still stood, smirk curling his lips. “Or with Henry. You won’t harm him.”

“But you see, your majesty.” The dark one replied, teeth bared, fury starting to seep through his perfect posture. “I don’t care about your threats any more. Or your lies.”

Regina blinked at that and for a moment Rumplestiskin thought she wasn’t going to understand the implications of his words, not until a sudden realization tampered the dark brown pupils once again, mouth turning into a slack line. “Belle.”

“Belle.” Rumplestiskin confirmed, not losing Emma’s confused glance from behind the brunette. The savior seemed completely lost and the notion made him want to giggle. However, there were more pressing matters at the moment and for those he leaned over the counter, eyes glinting in rage. “Lies are the only thing you are able to fed others.”

“Like you are one to talk.” Emma snapped and both Regina and Rumple blinked and turned towards the blonde who was now approaching where the two of them stood, hands at her hips, badge visible below the red jacket’s hem. “You left me at the bottom of the library after telling me that we needed you to help Henry.”

“And he is alive, isn’t he?” Rumple replied calmly. “I didn’t lie to you.”

“You manipulated me.” Emma replied, standing now at Regina’s side, the brunette woman looking briefly at her before setting her gaze on Rumple once again. The look, however, wasn’t lost on the dark one and he smirked briefly at it.

“And isn’t that what she is doing dearie? Has she even told you how, by prophecy, you shall destroy her so the curse can finally be lifted?”

* * *

 

Regina felt her breath itch as Emma stared at her for a second, flabbergasted. She didn’t lift her eyes from Rumple’s smirking form and for that she settled her jaw, rising her chin and standing as tall as she was while narrowing her eyes into two slits.

She, of course, had known that her silence around the curse wasn’t going to help her indefinitely but she had at least hoped to be better prepared when that time came for her. To her surprise, however, after one more tense moment Emma shrugged and kept her eyes trained into Rumplestiskin’s.

“I don’t care for prophecies Gold, but thanks to whatever you’re doing a friend of mine transformed into a wolf tonight.”

“I always wondered if her condition was magically-linked to her or was more about her inner self.” The man replied with a faraway look, one Regina had learnt to be wary off as her time as an apprentice. “It’s interesting to see that it’s the former. Now, if you two don’t have anything to sell or buy I would appreciate to see you both out of my shop.”

The two women stared at each other before Regina sighed, nodding and lowering her upper body just enough so her following words didn’t reach Emma’s ears. “Whatever you plan to do keep Henry out.”

“As you did with Belle?” The man replied but Regina never answered her question, the words loud enough for Emma to glance at the two of them before following the brunette’s steps outside the shop.

* * *

 

Once outside Regina raised her hands only to lower them a few seconds later while seething with rage. Emma, who was already eyeing her curiously raised her brows, unsure of what the brunette was trying to accomplish.

“Magic in this world fluctuates differently.” Regina provided as her only answer, not happy with the fact that she was being cornered into admitting her weakness to the blonde. Magic was indeed different in the world and somehow her powers didn’t seem to react in the same way to the old anger she had once used to fuel it. Schooling her features and refusing to say anything else she turned towards where her house stood and starting walking as quickly as possible. “We need to reach Henry before Rumplestiskin starts any kind of plan.”

“Do you think he will try? What were the two of you talking about before?” Emma replied, her longer legs helping her as she matched Regina’s frantic pace.

“I did many things as a Queen, miss Swan. Many of them followed us when the curse was casted.”

“So what does that mean?”

Regina halted, turning exasperatedly towards Emma as the blonde stopped as well, her hair halo-ing her face, her green eyes set on hers as the streetlamps casted shadows across her cheeks.

“Will you kill me?”

It wasn’t the answer nor the question Regina had been thinking on doing but the second she opened her lips the words had come out of her, tumbling, before she was realizing what she was doing, to whom she was talking.

To who she was supposed to fight against.

Regina, however, felt exhausted, exhausted and angry of games that had once upon a time robbed her ability to choose and what now seemed to be doing the same all over again. It had been almost 30 years since she had come to truly hate Snow White and even if she still despised the one responsible for Daniel’s death she found herself wishing to be able to be left alone, to be left outside petty stupid prophecies she didn’t want to play in anymore. Perhaps that was the reason why she stood, looking at Emma and waiting for the blonde to answer.

On her pockets, hidden from plain view, her fingers glowed.

“I…” The blonde licked her lips before taking a deep breath. “Why are you asking me this?”

“Just answer the question miss Swan.”

Emma tilted her head before she shook it once, eyes hard but sincere when she locked them with Regina’s once again.

“I’m not some kind of hangman. This is not… the other world anymore. I don’t plan to kill you.”

The answer surprised Regina, already half-expecting Emma to say how she indeed wanted Regina dead after everything had quieted enough. The thought of the blonde, of the savior sparing her life made her feel lost.

“Henry loves you.” Emma continued and when Regina snorted she repeated herself. “He does, he had the choice to ask me to stay and carry him with me. I would have done that if he had asked for it and we both know it.” And it was true, Regina knew that. “But he didn’t protest, as much as he can be angry with you he came to you. He cares for you. And I told you once Regina, I didn’t plan on staying her so I could snatch him away from you.”

“But you…”

“I started to become worried that you weren’t good for him, but I still didn’t plan to… steal him from you.”

Regina blinked at the words, suddenly rethinking on every of her talks she had had with the blonde in front of her. Her fury and rage had come from the fear that she, one day, would wake up and Henry would be gone. To listen the words that proved the contrary sucked her breath out of her lungs.

“I still don’t trust you.” Emma kept going, scratching her nose’s bridge before squeezing it, the cold and humidity of the air making her breath visible as she exhaled forcefully through her mouth. “But Henry chose to be with you. I want everyone to be as free as him with their decisions Regina but I don’t want to kill you.”

The two of them stood in silence for a few minutes after that, the words slowly permeating Regina’s mind, the truth behind them making her feel slightly dizzy.

“I understand.” She finally croaked out and Emma nodded, still looking at her, still not moving an inch.

It appeared that there were many things she still needed to understand from Emma Swan. She decided as she took a step towards the mansion, her shadow jumping at her side in the concrete floor.

And even if she had been taught again and again to never trust anyone she found herself wanting to trust the blonde’s words. For now, at least.


	2. Chapter 2

PART 2

The sunrays seeped inside Granny’s dinner through the freshly cleaned windows keeping the already there patrons awake enough for Ruby to collect their tips as she did her very first half an hour of a shift that was already promising itself as tedious as every other one.

Bored as she was, however, she still smiled warmly at a certain blonde sheriff when the woman entered the dinner with her eyes still only half-open and murmuring something she had learnt to understand as black coffee with enough cinnamon on it for it to be considered a crime for the coffee-lovers.

“Late night?” She asked as she poured the drink on one tall “to-go” mug. The blonde hummed before yawning, the light reflecting on her blonde tresses that seemed to be tangled even more so than any other day.

“Way too late.” Came the reply and Ruby narrowed her eyes, a whiff of a soft perfume coming to her the moment Emma shook her head in order to wake herself up.

She had always had had good senses, she knew that, but the smell seemed too strong than she even turned towards the door, wanting to be sure that a certain mayor hadn’t entered the dinner while she wasn’t looking at the door. Seeing the place Regina-free, however, made her turn her confused face into a more scheming one, lips quirking into a smirk.

“With who?” She asked, leaning conspiratorially at Emma who just blinked twice before frowning at Ruby.

“With the night-shift. Which… I wanted to ask you, how are you feeling today?”

Ruby blinked at the question, suddenly remembering how she had awoken with a splitting headache and not the faintest memory of where she had been the night before. Her grandmother had muttered something about how Ruby needed to stop scurrying away to the White Rabbit but, truth was, that Ruby didn’t remember to even come out of the dinner after she had asked for the older woman to let her go.

She also remembered Granny whispering something behind her back about wolves and how nothing seemed to be safe anymore and for that she looked at the blonde again, her previous questions about the perfume she still could feel in the air momentarily forgotten.

“Good, I’m good… And you are right, I heard something about you stopping a wolf or something last night? Leroy was here before claiming how you managed the situation.”

“You sure he said that? Because last night he and some other douche bag were telling me how I wasn’t really doing a good job.”

“What other guy?” Ruby asked, turning to give Astrid a copy of their menu as the sweet woman approached the two of them and for that not seeing Emma’s features relaxing.

“I don’t know, dressed as a lawyer, with a face he seems to permanently have something that stinks just below his nose.”

“You are probably referring to Spencer; he is… not very kind.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice.” Emma replied with a nod before taking one last sip of her coffee before pulling the lid on top of it. The movement carried another whiff of perfume to Ruby’s nose and she turned towards the blonde just as the woman was handing her the money for the beverage.

“You were with Regina, weren’t you?” She asked, only to cause the blonde to blink, the movement enough answer for the brunette waitress who grinned. “I always knew that whatever you had was pure sexual tension.”

With that she winked and turned, attending to Astrid and not seeing Emma’s blush or how she murmured. “We don’t!” before exiting the place.

* * *

 

Emma had just finished with her morning coffee and answered Mary Margaret’s messages with general enough ones of her own as the woman told her how David seemed to have re-appeared with the pleading of trying to get things right after claiming to have rethought about Boston when the door of the station opened and Gold walked in in confident strikes. Leaving the phone back at her table and coming to intercept him Emma frowned, the sight of the man without its limp strange enough now she knew more about what kind of person hid behind the mask the man wore on.

“I’m not in mood for slaying any more dragons.” She said before he could speak, her voice sounding less threatening that what she had intended.

“The only winged creatures you will encounter here now, dearie, are those fairies dressed as nuns. Nothing too strenuous.”

Filing that information for later Emma crossed her arms in front of her chest, not wanting to give the man any satisfaction.

“What are you doing here then?”

“Because of our common enemy of course, Regina.”

“Regina is not my enemy.”

“She is the one that has your son, isn’t she?”

“He wants to be with her.”

Even those words hurt but it was true what she had said to Regina the night before; she wanted Henry to have a choice in the matter. Even if she didn’t trust the brunette she had seen the pain she had been the moment she had thought for Henry to be gone. As much as she still didn’t understand everything she didn’t plan on harming anyone just because some curse told it so.

“But you want to be with him, dearie. And while the curse is still working you won’t be able to ask for him back.”

The man had, somehow, sneaked past Emma stance and was now standing even closer than before, his impeccable suit framing his silhouette as he eyed her, waiting for an answer Emma fought against.

“You don’t want to kill Regina, that’s fine. But wouldn’t be good for you as well to find another way to lift the curse? A loophole? You would be with Henry after that.” The words, said in a calm, soft voice, made Emma’s skin crawl; she had learnt enough about Gold to know that nothing, even comments, came for free and for that she stood silent, moving just a few inches at her right, the door glass that separated her desk from the rest of the station pressing her back.

“I may not trust Regina. “She started. “But I trust what she will do for Henry. I don’t trust you, Gold. Not after what you did at the library, after what you did to Ashley. You will need to find another one to help you with whatever you’re planning to do.”

The man seemed about to say something after that but she remained still and he finally nodded, a small smirk appeared on his face before he turned, the echo of his steps carrying her out of the station.

It was time, she decided, to truly know more about Storybrooke. With that in mind she dialled one of the few phone numbers she had already memorized, the wish for it to be a younger voice answering her disappearing the second the phone was picked at the other side.

_“Regina Mills speaking.”_

Well, at least she had gotten her to answer.

* * *

 

Gold opened and closed the door of his house, smiling at the sight of Belle’s head on top of a few of the books he had left for her the moment he had left the house a few hours before. The woman still seemed shaken and tired, her eyes seeming to never truly set on something before she focused on something else but he was adamant to manage whatever trouble that came against them. Magical or not.

And after that, he decided, nodding sagely, they would be gone, gone to find Bae, gone to be together.

“How are you?” He asked, forgetting momentarily his ideas about revenge. Belle lift her head and nodded ever so slowly, her gaze slightly glazed as she returned from whatever world the book had immersed her into.

“I missed it.” She said while pointing at the book. “Back at the Hospital they never truly let me read.”

Rumplestiskin felt his whole body start to tremble out of anger but he remained as calm as possible as he seated next to Belle, the woman leaving the books and promptly looking at him, her eyes beginning to wander the very same second he looked at her, lost already on another thought.

“We will make her pay for what she did to you.” He promised through gritted teeth, the look on his eyes feral as he closed his hands into two tight fists.

“I don’t want to destroy her.” Belle replied softly, the thought alone seeming to make her uncomfortable. “There should be better ways Rumple, you told me that we were going to cross to the other side of the line. Why we don’t merely do that?”

_Because we can’t at the moment, because it’s not enough anymore._

“We will see.” Rumplestiskin replied instead of the clamour of voices echoing inside her head, asking for revenge and thirsty of blood. “We will see.”

* * *

 

Emma kicked a pebble and followed its trajectory as Regina scoffed at her side, comfortably clothed in a black raincoat that Emma had been caught herself staring at ever since the brunette had appeared at the station, a scowl marring her features.

“I don’t like being fetched.” She had said and Emma had needed a few more seconds to wake herself from the daze she had fallen into at the sight of the other woman’s curves being hinted by the tight-fitted clothing.

“This is Ruby’s fault.” She had thought while shrugging, trying to look much more sure of herself than what she truly felt; ever since she had talked with the girl images of Regina and herself had started to appear at her mind’s eye. Images that, if she was being honest with herself, had already been there before but she had been able to forget about them until then.

“I think that after everything we discovered yesterday we should really work on gaining the upper hand against Gold.” She had said while picking her jacket, badge already handing from her belt. “Curse or not this city has magic now. I need to know about how that one works.”

Regina had sighed at that but had finally comply to Emma’s ask by nodding knowing full well than a part of what the blonde was saying was true: They needed the upper hand.

The blonde hadn’t asked about Belle or what the man had been talking about the day before once they have arrived at the mansion, finding an already half asleep Henry who had mumbled a request of Emma being the one who tucked him in, that fateful book on his lap. Emma had looked at Regina, silently asking for permission and that second alone had made Regina falter on the cutting remark she already had prepared for the blonde. They, after all, had become reluctant allies after what had happened to Henry and the boy, the one who Emma had told Regina she wanted to have always a choice to choose who he wanted to be with, seemed to be the one that was going to be the one to unit them once again.

So she had nodded and had left the room, not wanting to look at Emma crouched next to the bedroom, whispering good wishes to Henry, doing something Regina had been banned from doing even before the blonde had first arrived. The woman had been quick though, not leaving Regina enough time to drown herself into sorrow and she had seen herself out after a few seconds of silence in where she had seemed ready to say something but hadn’t.

Probably it had been because of that why Regina had finally agreed on helping Emma and guide her through this new awakened Storybrooke, one that looked the same and wasn’t.

“So why the mines?” Emma said, waking Regina from her thoughts. After agreeing on helping Regina Emma had instructed the blonde to follow her while muttering how she was still the mayor and, therefore, had work to do. The comments had been met with silence but it had somehow felt comfortable for the two of them walk side by side to the beginning of the mines, a place in where them both had felt a shiver running down their spines; memories of a trapped Henry still fresh in their minds.

Regina cleared her head once again and pointed in front of her, where the tunnel they had been following for the past few minutes seemed to widen. The main entrance to the mines had effectively been closed but a new route, one she had been sure to keep open just in case, was still standing and through it they had been walking, dimming torch in hand.

“Magic can come from different entities miss Swan, it can come from within a creature or a person and it can come from some external force. Fairy dust, for example, doesn’t come from the fairies themselves but need to be recollected… by dwarves.”

Emma blinked at that as they finally arrived at the slightly bigger tunnel; the walls were covered in some glinting substance Regina smiled sourly at it. Magic, she realized, was quickly reining over Storybrooke, far quicker than what she would have thought. The very core of the curse was trembling and the taste of it felt bitter at the back of her tongue.

“So you are saying that fairies aren’t covered with the stuff?” The blonde asked, eliciting something that seemed to be a throaty laugh from the older woman.

“They can do magic but the substance that grant them greater powers is born from a mix of a certain branch of diamonds and a potion they make themselves. The dwarves refine the diamonds before giving them to them.”

The two of them steeped even further within the new tunnel, Emma looking at the walls completely speechless before she turned towards Regina, a question already on her lips. “This is what you wanted to keep Henry away from? When he… came down here.”

Regina tilted her head and considered to tell another lie to the blonde, feeling her magic suddenly running more strongly inside her veins. Her powers were still shaky but she wasn’t powerless and there was a moment of hesitation that Emma read, her own eyes hardening before she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Listen, I don’t want to harm you. I just only want to understand. If we manage to break the curse, I will speak in your favour in case there is some kind of trouble. But I need to know if we want to help each other. Gold is probably creating a new avada kedavra as we speak.”

That last bit was said with a feeble yet obvious smile and for a moment Regina almost wanted to retort in similar means to the blonde. However, it was the first part of the blonde’s discourse what troubled her. “Do you think your parents will even think on forgiving me, miss Swan? They will probably throw me here after they are done with some kind of fake trial. And I won’t ever be able to see Henry again.”

Emma closed her eyes at the bitterness she could feel coming out of Regina, the torch the brunette had been carrying casting hundreds of little dots on the fairy dust that covered the walls, dots winking and disappearing around her as she talked.

“I will talk with them, I know it seems impossible but, Regina, we aren’t in that world anymore. There aren’t any more kings and queens here.” She finally answered by opening her eyes once again, the torch’s light making her blink, suddenly blind.

Regina looked at the blonde, the idea of attacking her, of claiming that it had been an accident coming back to her once again. At the end, though, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to do such a thing and for that she nodded reluctantly even if she still didn’t really trust or believed on the blonde’s words.

“It would have been impossible for him to see this before magic was brought back here. However, there are things that came here with the curse.”

“Other than Maleficent.”

“Other than her, yes.” Regina thought for a second on her old friend and sighed before returning to her explanation. “Your mother’s coffin is one of those things. It’s at the furthest level of the mines, a place in where Henry would have probably lost himself forever.”

Both of them looked around, the once beautiful walls seeming deadly to Emma once again. “You think he would have found it? The coffin.” She clarified, the idea of her mother, of Mary Margaret in such a place making part of her start to spin.

“I don’t know.” Regina replied, shrugging and closing her arms across her midriff. “But he was in danger nonetheless. I didn’t want him down here because it’s dangerous. The mines weren’t thought to be open, they were a reminiscent of the other world, a place where the dwarves used to work.”

Emma hummed, the image of Henry the moment she had found him alongside with Archie coming back to her, the memory of Regina coming to her, asking, pleading, to bring back the boy coming to her as well, making her swallow before continuing.

“There are many other places like this one?”

Regina teared her eyes off the walls and nodded briefly.

“A well, the bridge, some places at the shore… the curse needed a real place to base itself on, several pieces of the forest fell through the cracks as we were brought here.”

The two of them remained silent after that, eventually Emma turning towards the entrance while Regina promptly followed her, hands clasped at her back while the blonde dug them deep at her pockets, lost in thought.

“Henry asked me something yesterday.” She finally said as the light from the outside world started to filter through the tunnel. “About you and the evil queen.”

Regina trembled at the epithet. It had been far too many years since she had heard it and even the “majesty” Rumple had used hadn’t carried with it the other title, the one Snow White had given her.

“I told him that you didn’t looked like the cartoon.” Emma was smiling now before shrugging when Regina shot back a dark look at her. “Well, it’s true! I also told him that I didn’t want to destroy you.”

That made Regina pause. Since Emma had discovered the truth behind the curse she had told her that she didn’t intent on ending her life. However, if that conversation was true -and she intended on finding if it had been- that meant that the blonde was really repeating the same concept to others, not just to Emma.

 _Actions speak louder than words._ She thought, something her mother had ingrained on her. Be the proper girl, be the most intelligent, the most cunning. Always know more and act along it. Words didn’t speak, words were weapons that actions used.

Shaking her head, she tried to forgot about her mother, about what it had brought with her. “That’s laudable miss Swan.” She finally answered. “But as I’ve told you, you are not the one who will decide that.”

“I’m the sheriff of this town, Regina, magic or not. I will make them listen.”

 _So royal._ Regina thought in distaste but in truth she knew that the blonde she had at her side, sunrays already on her hair, was nothing what her mother had been like. And nothing like Regina herself would have imagined her to be.

“You want to see Henry tonight?” She finally asked, the question feeling strange around her lips and tongue but the sight of Emma speechless made her smile nonetheless. “I will let you a map of Storybrooke’s surroundings if you want to keep wandering around while trying to break your neck.”

“You are the one wearing heels.” Emma replied, succinct but somehow smiling and Regina found herself rolling her eyes at the joke.

Perhaps, she decided, she wasn’t doomed, not yet.

* * *

 

_Three weeks later_

Emma closed the door of her car with a loud thud, one hand over her eyes as she tried to see something on the afternoon’s light that bathed Storybrooke’s cemetery. With one glance to her phone where Regina’s message was still on display, the blonde picked up her pace, passing next to tombs the brunette had confirmed a few days back how they were mostly empty, names and dates fake. With slightly chattering teeth due to the cold that seemed to have taken a hold on the city’s weather Emma approached the vault at the northern part of the cemetery, the name of the Mill’s already visible to her when Regina took a step outside of it, one brow raising at the slightly shuddering blonde.

“If you would dress less like a child and changed that hideous jacket to something more comfortable…” She said full of mirth and Emma found herself scoffing at the thought, arms crossed in front of her, hands hiding below her armpits as she took the last strides inside the mausoleum.

“You like the jacket.” She protested, only eliciting something that seemed to be a mix between a shake and a sigh.

Ever since they had made that somehow awkward deal and after what had truly be one of the hardest dinners in history Emma had found that Regina, once she dropped all pretence to be the bitch she had once been able to meet, was actually quite interesting, warm and-perhaps because she was set on her intent to show Henry how she truly cared for him or just because due to circumstances- a very good mother. As weeks progressed the boy had started to trust his brunette mother more, weary still of the magic he now could sometimes see on her, lurking inside her eyes whenever she lost her hold on it, but more comfortable than what he had been on ages. For both Emma and Regina that alone had helped the two of them. For Emma to see another face of the brunette and for Regina to actually see beyond the fear the idea of losing her son had created within her.

And, more surprisingly once they had stopped trying to tear each other apart, the two of them had started to see that the other wasn’t the horrible person they had both thought the other one to be. They weren’t friends, not exactly, but it wasn’t strange now to see them both drinking coffee at Granny’s, pretending not to be seated next to the other but civil nonetheless. Every time that happened Ruby would wink at Emma, making her flustered and causing for Regina to look at both blonde and waitress curiously, not understanding the secret glances the lanky brunette seemed to keep sending to the sheriff.

Everything was still changing of course, neither of them talked about it as much as those first days when Regina, reluctantly at first, had started showing Emma the inner works of a now magical Storybrooke, afraid of losing any kind of leverage she could have over the younger woman. Emma had been a quick pupil and even more patient than what Regina wold have had credited her for and so as weeks passed and the curse remained on hold the two of them had turned to the vault hidden below the Mills’ mausoleum, the information stored there enough for Emma to feel dizzy with the kind of implications and magic she needed to digest in that single day.

Regina had taken the habit to read at the vault every now and then, still seeking any kind of information although the hurry they had also felt those first few days slowly receding; Rumplestiskin had been seen walking through mains street with Belle at his side now but the two of them mostly kept to themselves and that alone, although didn’t soothe her nerves, helped her with her nerves. Still the fear was there and for that the hours she spent reading book after book were worthy.

“So anything new?” Emma asked to the brunette as they both descended the stairs. Like usual the feeling of the tomb around the two of them seemed to collapse her lungs and she took a deep breath, the feeling of magic floating around the air somewhat calming her. Regina hadn’t yet explained to her the reason for the hearts that still remained there and after a rage fit she had had the day Regina had finally admitted their existence the two of them had agreed on not talking about them, or about the circumstances that had brought so many hearts to a place without magic.

“They aren’t from people that live here, not anymore.” Regina had said after she and Emma had fell silent, the last bit of screams they had shouted to each other still ricocheting around them.

“Then what are they doing here?” Emma had asked, still white with fury, realization of what had happened with Graham still weighing her down.

She hadn’t loved the man but she had found in him someone to rely on, at least until he had become something she hadn’t been able to understand. Not until then.

“To make me remember who I was.” Regina had replied and that day it had been the first one where Emma had seen a truly break from the woman Regina claimed she had once been and the woman she was now. But that was something she had kept to herself.

“Nothing new.” Regina’s reply helped Emma to blink away from the memory, the brunette’s back facing her as she read one big leather book that rested atop the furthest table of the vault. “Although…”

Emma swallowed, feeling another kind of dread settling inside her stomach. Ever since they had started watching for Henry not to fall himself into a Rumple’s trap and as Emma’s knowledge about the magic of the place their talk about how they would break the curse had come to an end; Regina didn’t want to end up imprisoned and even if she was somehow trusting Emma now she still was waiting for the other shoe to drop, permanently seeming to be afraid of any possible outcome about the curse. Curse that still had Emma’s name written on it, in that awful clause. Emma had learnt to not talk about the curse either because every time she thought about having Mary Margaret and David -now still trying to create some kind of relationship with the pain the false murder had brought upon themselves- as her parents she felt her legs wobbly and her whole mind starting to hurt. She had been alone for so long, away from a real family for so many years, that she wasn’t sure what she wanted, what she truly wanted, anymore. A family, she had wished for a family all those months ago, when Henry had knocked at her door but the boy himself had transformed into a family and the thought of having those weeks to spare, to still wrap her mind around the fact that she wasn’t truly an orphan, had been a blessing she was selfish enough to not know what to do. What she wanted.

So all in all it was a surprise to hear how Regina seemed to still be searching, even if it only glorified their promise to Henry at this point.

“What have you found?” Emma asked cautiously, sensing that that was the question Regina truly wanted to hear. Through the weeks she had come to respect the brunette, yes, but also be careful of the amount of information and power Regina seemed able to wield. The brunette’s magic was still shaky, the laws of this other world still not clear enough for her or how they bent to magic, but she still had the knowledge as her time as an apprentice and she was capable of put up a fight. Something that Emma had seen for herself a few times now.

From her part Regina bit down her bottom lip, maps of Storybrooke layered in front of her, names of things Emma wouldn’t be able to understand scribbled down at the edges of the papers, sometimes even jot down into the pieces of parchment below them, ink now tinting the tips of her fingers, making her feel like a much younger version of herself. One that still had had hope.

“Henry has been asking, about his grandparents.” The last word was said as slow as it was bitter and Emma found her own mind studying the word, the implications, as if it was someone else’s parents Regina was referring to. “He wants to meet them.”

Emma eyed the woman in front of her, not truly knowing what she was supposed to say about it. They had been as realistic with Henry as possible, telling him their plans but the boy had never pressed, not until then.

“What have you said?” She finally asked, approaching the table, her digits touching the wooden edge as her eyes followed a slightly less coloured grain that run down the right side of the table until a few inches of Regina’s own hands.

“He wants the curse to be broken miss Swan.” Regina had started to say the blonde’s name tentatively as Emma had fully dropped the madam major title and somehow the use of her surname cut deeper than what Emma would have expected. Even if she knew that it was only a reflection of Regina’s own tiredness. “We’ve been stalling.”

“Have we?” Emma retorted back knowing full well that they in fact hadn’t been as committed as they could have been. They had tried to understand the in-works of the curse, yes, but they had stopped talking about breaking it once they had realized that the other didn’t plan to push about it. Something neither of them had complained, not until now.

Regina looked at Emma once, her eyes full of the exasperation Emma already knew that would be there. Regina could be good at lying and deceiving but she wasn’t one keen in lying to herself.

“He wants them free, and I don’t have excuses for that.”

“But you want it?” Emma pushed, now sure why she was asking such thing, knowing full well that that wasn’t the question she was supposed to be doing. Still, Regina closed her eyes for a second before she eyed her again, looking raw, as if her walls were slowly crumbling around her.

“I’m sure they will want my head upon a plate the second the curse is broken.” She replied, venom in her voice, tiredness on the way she moved, hands tightly turned into fists as she spoke. “I’m not fond of the idea of being imprisoned.”

“I told you that we aren’t in the forest anymore. I would vouch for you.”

 _Will you?_ A voice inside her head asked, one that seemed too close to Regina’s but also one that seemed way to similar to herself. Back when everything had started she had thought about it, about lying and putting the brunette behind bars the second she needed her to be there. But things had changed and everything wasn’t as clear or as easy as before.

“Sexual tension” Has said Ruby all those days ago. And perhaps it could only be that but Emma refused to go there, not now.

“But we have the chance to not be here anymore after the curse breaks.” The brunette replied, handing a piece of map at Emma, one the blonde took and recognized almost instantly.

“The mines?”

Regina nodded before exhaling; “At the bottom of the mines there is…”

“My mother’s coffin, you told me that yourself.” The blonde said, eyes still trained on the map. Ever since that first visit they had come a few more times, Regina monitoring the fairy dust that was still gathering there. They had never walked inwards the mines, the place dangerous enough for Emma to never ask Regina if they could go to see where her mother had rested during the sleeping curse she had been subjected to. Not that the blonde had truly wanted to see such a thing. Not like that.

But now, she realized looking away from the map and into Regina’s features. “You lied to me.” She accused and it hurt it more than the first time she had said that to the woman in front of her.

“I just didn’t think about it.” Regina defended herself, throwing her hands up in the air. “Magic was, is, still new around here. I didn’t think that it could help us in any way what I put back there.”

“And what it is?” Emma said back, voice rising although not as much as the day she had first entered inside the vault, not feeling like it.

“A trigger, a detonator.” Regina finally provided, exhausted. “That would revert the curse.”

“And break it?” Emma asked, voice high-pitched.

“Not exactly.” Regina admitted, picking the map out of Emma’s hands, one finger following the lines, her hair -slightly longer now that Emma realized how it grazed the underside of the brunette’s jaw- “The curse was made in different layers, one was to keep them away from their true selves, the other was to bring them back here. And another…”

“Was to keep them frozen in time.” Emma guessed. “But I broke that one when I came here.”

“You did.” Regina confirmed. “But the curse wasn’t broken by it because of the layers. The trigger is capable only to destroy another layer, not the one that keep them away from their memories but…”

“The place we are in. We would be thrown back at the enchanted forest.”

Regina nodded at that before looking back at Emma’s eyes, her own seeming impossible big under the blonde’s gaze.

“I didn’t tell anything because the trigger wasn’t our answer at the moment. But now... Henry is asking questions and you once told me that we should be able to give him the choices.”

If neither of them noticed the “we” none of them dwelled on it, not knowing full well what to do with that particular word. However, Emma realized what the brunette was talking about and for that she surged forward, circling the table and coming even closer to the brunette.

“But this is not… the trigger would bring us to a place that you wouldn’t be able to… How you know that it will work now?”

“Because of the fairy dust.” Regina answered, moving a step away, eyes going to the list of numbers she had been writing down with every passing day they had come to the mines. “A single bucket can do wonders. If I write down a spell with it and I infuse it on the trigger, I would probably be able to create a shockwave that would bring them all back.”

“And you would be as good as dead.” Emma replied, not sure where her discomfort was coming from. Ever since the beginning she had been ambivalent to the curse but now, seeing it so close made her stomach lurch; there were many things that could go wrong, she argued with herself. Henry, Mary Margaret, Ruby…

Regina. Regina, the woman who had tried the impossible to keep her away from Henry was now mussing about how to bring back a world that would only harm her in order to give Henry what he had asked for ever since Emma had known him and that alone made her shudder. There should be other ways, she thought, they needed to be. Not only because of her promise to the boy, or even to Regina’s but because the idea of her being teleported back at the Enchanted Forest made her skin crawl. She had been away in a world she had discovered wasn’t hers to begin with but the forest, the place Regina had explained to her sometimes late at night or even Henry had read her from his book, wasn’t a place she found herself wanting to go, wanting to be the princess she would be.

Because as much as she wasn’t the saviour -she refused to be- she also wasn’t a princess, royalty.

“Why do you care?” Regina was asking and for a moment Emma licked the underside of her teeth, feeling the edges of her canines as she pondered on the question.

_“Sexual tension?”_

“I made you a promise.” She finally replied, shrugging and Regina looked away, seeming to also be deciding something herself.

“We both know that the promise was as good as wet paper miss Swan. Once your parents were back at being the ones they were nothing you could have said would have saved me.”

“I would have tried.”

“Why?”

Why indeed but Emma refused to answer that. “I will talk to Henry, tell him that we need a little bit of time.”

“You would be lying, now who is lying to him?”

“It’s not like that!”

“Then how it is?”

They were circling each other now, angry due to nothing and yet Emma’s ears were ringing and Regina’s eyes seemed to be pure purple now, her magic coming out of her fingers, surging forward but never quite reaching Emma. The blonde would also feel the energy inside of her, almost burning inside her veins but the energy never moved, never surged and she tasted a metallic flavour on the back of her mouth that was soon gone as Regina looked away.

“I’ve been called many things during my reign, but I want to be the mother Henry deserves, Emma”

And her name seemed now even more bittersweet.

“You were the Queen.” The blonde retorted back, not sure anymore what was she asking Regina to do.

“Not anymore.” The admission was made in a whisper, one the two of them could have pretended to not have hear it but Emma didn’t want to and so she turned.

“I will be at the station.” She called over her shoulder, not really knowing what else to say.

And so she left Regina inside her vault, surrounded by hearts that didn’t beat anymore and old parchments Emma didn’t even understand but suspected the brunette herself didn’t anymore.

* * *

 

Gold saw Emma stomping out of the Mills’ mausoleum and smiled to himself. He had sensed the change on the magical lines, the scent of Regina’s power enough for him. He had been unable to listen to what had been said but the look on the blonde’s gaze when he had seen her come out of the place was enough for his mind to start working.

After realizing that hurting Henry would be as time-consuming as to actually try to hurt the former queen directly he had settled on keep thinking about a way to break the barrier. Belle had been delighted to see him away from his murdering tendencies but, however, he hadn’t exactly forgotten about them. And seeing the blonde drive off the place was giving him an idea.

* * *

 

Emma closed her eyes as she finally entered the station, the place silent and empty. The last few weeks had been slow and even if a part had welcomed that since she had been able to help Regina and tag along with her now she found herself wishing to have something to do instead of just stare at the wall in front of her, not yet understanding where the rage she had felt back at the vault came from.

She had wanted for the curse to be broken, of course she had. But perhaps she had thought that the results would come differently, that she would have more time to get to know Henry before all hell broke loose. Perhaps, she realized with a bitter smile, she had also wanted to keep whatever Regina and herself had going between them to get it to have it a little longer just for herself. Perhaps, she continued while sitting at the edge of her table, not wanting to seat at her chair just yet, she had wanted for everything to… what? Remain the same?

Some kind of saviour she was. She thought while pinching the bridge of her nose. Thing was she wasn’t a Hero, some kind of perfect chosen one. She was her and she was selfish enough apparently to keep wanting to be friends with a woman that didn’t lie when she said she was able to kill or butcher someone that looked slyly at her.

Or who had been able to do that at least. The lines between good or evil had always seemed stupid to her, even when she had been a child and she had read those kind of things in the few books of such ideas she had been able to get her hands into. But now Regina was truly talking about lifting the curse and a part of her was shrieking inside of her, asking for more time, for… what?

“Henry would be proud of me, the saviour.” She whispered in a mocking, tired voice.

“Oh, believe me, many kids are gullible dearie.” A voice said at her left and she nearly jumped when she turned, meeting with Gold’s cold eyes.

“What do you want?” She asked, weary and standing as tall as she was, ashamed to have been caught by the man as she had been.

“To ask for my favour back of course.” Came the reply. The man was dressed as impeccably as ever and in some way things seemed that it hadn’t changed, that Emma was still just the sheriff of a sleepy town and him the smarmy owner of the pawnshop. Of course things weren’t as simple anymore. “The one you promised me in exchange for Ashley’s child.”

“And you are asking for it now?” Emma replied back, chin raised, arms crossing in front of her chest. The swan-motif of her pendant reflected the light of the station and winked, for a moment making Rumplestiskin to look at it before he looked back at the blonde’s green eyes.

“In fact, I am. I want your help with something I’ve been preparing for our mayor.”

“Like hell I will help you.”

“We made a deal.” Gold replied, blinking calmly at Emma’s pale and angry face. He had been there before, in front of people who thought that could beg and plead until he gave in. Little they knew that he never gave in.

“Pick another game with me, Gold. I won’t help you with hurting Regina.”

“Some kind of honourable woman are you, uhm?” The man replied with a smirk crossing his features as Emma flinched. “I wonder what your son would say.”

“Don’t start.” She warned and the man’s smirk only grew larger.

“I only want to know something about our major, nothing more, nothing else.”

“For all I care you can fall down the mines and break both of your legs Gold.”

The man tilted his head, eyes narrowed and mind already working. The mines had been a place he hadn’t still be in since he had considered the place to be not important for neither the blonde in front of her or the former Queen. The mention of it, however, could mean that perhaps there were more things there than Regina had wanted him to know about.

Without saying anything he turned and left, not bothering to even hide a triumphant look from the now flabbergasted blonde.

Emma closed her eyes as Gold disappeared, realizing the mistake she had made.

_“Regina is going to kill me.”_

* * *

 

Regina walked past the diamonds that would turn into fairy dust once everyone was back at the forest, the idea making her cringe as she turned to her left, the passage transforming into a much narrower one that the one she had just walked in. Her feet-clothed in a pair of tall, black boots- scrapped the uneven floor of the caves and for a second she needed to steady herself against one of the walls, Emma’s green furious eyes glowing back at her inside her mind’s eye.

The blonde saviour who had been brought to that world to destroy her wanting to keep her safe. Irony at its best she had thought when the woman had fled the vault, her own anger and hurt clouding her thinking. In minutes though, when it had been obvious that Emma was in fact not going to come back, she had come to a plan: she would go and pick up the trigger. Once it was out in the open its power would probably alert a certain imp but if she was quick enough he wouldn’t be any more of a problem that it already had been.

With that in mind she had teleported herself at the entrance of the mines, her power titillating as she had searched for the old pool of cold fury that had been its power source. The fact that her magic was still fragile was something that bothered her but she put that idea at the back of her mind, for now at least, as she concentrated on entering the mines, her digits glowing again, a couple of sparks seem to float towards the entrance of the mines before disappearing completely.

She had understood Emma’s rage and fury since it had been her own the moment Henry had woken her up from the sort of dream she had been willing to live the moment she had realized that, perhaps, she didn’t quite want to destroy Emma anymore. She had been content on the life she had started to live in: magic back but still the mayor, still Regina, just Regina. And Emma had only seen that on her as well.

Henry’s question, however, had brought the ugly truth back where they should have been; in front of her eyes. The curse was either whole or broken and the very pillars of where the curse had been resting for the past 28 years had already been broken. It would only be a matter of time before the rest of them were shattered and she was starting to get out of options. But even if she had been afraid and had expected -or wished- for Emma to fight against the idea of being sent back into a world that would only be the daughter of the monarchs and therefore a princess with near to nothing to do for herself, she would have never seen that rage directed at something as simple of how she, Regina, would lose everything due to the lifted curse. It had always been the reality, of course, without the curse Regina was nothing but an evil entity for the people Henry wanted to meet but somehow Emma’s promise to protect her had kept her calm. Calm until she had realized that there was no way that plan alone would work.

And for that she was there, to destroy her accomplishment, to destroy Storybrooke and, perhaps, to create a loophole big enough for her to escape. Or not because the idea of leaving Henry behind broke her in two. For Henry she would stay, no matter what her ending could be.

And for Emma.

Emma who had trusted her, reluctantly but had been open to it, Emma who had slowly but surely started to become something that Regina was too shaky to consider a friend but it was. Emma who had been afraid when Regina had admitted that there was no way but to go back to the forest, to the place she had once felt like a prison around her neck.

Reaching the last curve of the path she glanced at the lowest level of the mines where a shadow could be seen lurking between the dust that seemed to crawl up the stony dark walls. Maleficent.

She would be back, she realized, but she wouldn’t be put down like some filthy animal without a fight.

With that idea in mind she scurried down the last part of the path and reached the glass coffin that had once kept Snow-white, the dust and ashes that covered the glass-made cover thick enough that the lines and motifs the dwarves had carved in were barely noticeable anymore.

It was that moment, when she broke one of the glass panels and grabbed the pouch she had put there all those years ago, when a red mist surrounded her.

“Hello dearie.”

* * *

 

Emma knocked at the door of the mayoral mansion feeling very much like the first time she had met Regina. Licking her lips, she knocked it twice, already thinking on what she would say to her, about Rumple, about what she had told to him, about what she could have really told him.

However, once the door was opened the one who greeted her wasn’t Regina but Henry. The boy seemed to have just come from school and a part of the blonde felt ashamed at the realization she had been so preoccupied with what she was going to tell to Regina that Henry hadn’t come to her mind. The boy tilted her head to one side in a gesture she had already seen on Regina a few times now and she smiled a little at it. Nurture had certainly won the fight in his case and she realized that it didn’t sting any more than how it had hurt before.

“Mom is not here.” The boy finally said and Emma shook her head at the realization that Henry had already expected her to be there because of Regina and not for himself. “She sent me a text, something about how she wanted to get things straight. Told me to come here straight from school.”

The boy seemed sullen at that, probably because he had already made plans to go to the comic store and the simplicity of it all warmed the blonde’s heart as she crouched in front of Henry, the two of them still at the main door of the mansion.

“I’m looking for her.” She admitted, knowing full well that it was better for her to tell him the truth. “But how are you kid?”

Henry shrugged, deep in some thought that made his eyes glint for a moment. “Is she trying to break the curse?”

Emma exhaled loudly before nibbling at the insides of her mouth, the leather of her jacket tight at her back as she let her hands fall limply over her knees. “I don’t know.” She told him slowly, the glance the boy threw at her enough to let her known Henry had already made his own conclusions.

“I don’t want her to suffer.” He finally said, seeming to also be choosing his words as carefully as possible. “I told her I wanted to know Snow White and prince Charming but… is she going to be killed?”

Emma blinked, Henry hadn’t ever asked about such things. He had told her relentlessly how she needed to destroy the curse in order to defeat the Queen but the boy had never explicitly asked about Regina’s own demise. Perhaps Emma and Regina hadn’t been the ones who had started to change views after everything that had happened.

“I don’t…” She started but Henry interrupted her, his hand gripping the handle of the door and for a moment Emma stilled, not knowing what would be best, if she was supposed to take the boy inside or just envelop him in a hug. She wasn’t good with those kind of things, probably never will.

“I don’t want that.” He exclaimed. “She seems happy now, more than happy. And you too. The two of you. I only wanted to know more but not… not to break that.”

_“You want it all.”_

And what was wrong with wanting to have it all? He was a kid, Emma wasn’t. Emma was the one who had found herself wanting to have everything Regina was offering to her, that Storybrooke was offering to her. And for that felt selfish. But was she?

“I made a promise to her.” She said to the boy, careful, too careful perhaps. “To help her in case something went wrong.”

Henry nodded, looking wearily at her.

“You know where she is?” He asked and Emma started to shook her head before stopping in mid-movement. She had come to the mansion because that was the first place Regina would be if she wasn’t working or at the vault. But if she wasn’t there where else she could be?

The mines, the place she had probably directed Gold to.

“Henry…” She started but the boy was already nodding, far too serious looking for someone who was only 10 years-old.

“I will be here, promise.”

With that one Emma turned and run towards her car, one hand already picking up her keys, the other one turned into a tight fist.

_“Please be okay.”_

* * *

 

Regina grunted as her old mentor threw at her another wave of red magic. The two of them had moved towards the upper-level of the mine, one in which Maleficent shrieks could be heard but not a place where her former friend could hurt them. Rumplestiskin was far too careful for that. His magic blows, however, were far from careful and as she ducked and called for her own magic she heard the mocking sound of the man’s laughter as he dodged easily Regina’s last defences.

“You are weak.” He said in a voice that seemed more like the imp Regina had known than the man she had been at Storybrooke. “The mighty evil Queen dearie and you aren’t able to call for your power. How much time had already passed? Almost a month? And you are still unable to use your power properly. For this I spent so many time trying to teach you? For you to be weak?”

The questions burnt her flesh as much as it did the blows. It was true however that her magic still refused to work like it had used to and it was only when fear flared that some parts of her connected once again with her the power that now seems to be buried inside of her. At first she had thought for it to be a mere symptom of how magic worked differently on the world they were in but seeing now how easy it came for Rumple it seemed that perhaps other things were also different for her.

Throwing a fireball to the man she dodged like some kind of glorified thug. Something Cora would have probably be less than happy to see; the memory of her mother made the fireball burn hotter for a second and she took that advantage as she moved to her left, the black diamond still inside her pocket where she had put it the moment she had seen Gold standing in front of her.

At the end, she thought with a sour expression, magic always came from the most powerful feeling of all: hate. Hate and remorse. That was what Rumple had showed her back at her time as an apprentice: her power came from her rage, from her loss, and she had embraced those feelings, twisting them inside of her. Now, however, after 28 years the anger and hate, the fear and loss were still there but changed and her magic, as well as them, did also seem changed.

“I wonder what would say the saviour, seeing you like this.” Rumplestiskin continued, walking towards her, Maleficent shrieks echoing, the sound of nails scraping against the rocks deafening into Regina’s ears. “She didn’t want to sell you in. Another defect of course, another failure… but it doesn’t matter, doesn’t it?” He giggled madly and Regina set her jaw, an idea forming in her mind.

The trigger could help her into bringing Storybrooke back to where it had once been, freeing the citizens from the city. But it also was something she could use to trap Rumple in. Activating the trigger without using the boost of the fairy dust could possibly mean that she would be subjecting herself with a life without Henry but the imp before her would be as trapped inside the forest than she would be, and with the chaos that would ensue the opening of such portal she would be able to escape, away from him.

 “You incarcerated Belle, you kept her away from me. With lies. You used her!”

She had lied at Emma back at the vault. Because, at the end what was she good at?  Deceiving. The blonde had been so angry she hadn’t seen the lie but Regina had felt it on herself.

Without the boost it wouldn’t be the memories of Storybrooke’s citizens what would be out of their reach but Henry, possibly Emma herself since she had spent so many years in this other realm the curse would leave her behind. She hadn’t been brought by the curse after all. Without the trigger to keep Storybrooke where it was everyone would return to the forest with two exceptions. The idea of losing them, the two of them, what had prompted Regina to try to find another solution. What had made her lie.

Now, however, she didn’t have the time and for that she run towards the upper levels of the mine, sending another blast to Rumplestiskin and swallowing what she realized was blood due to the cupric taste.

“Please.” She thought, Rumplestiskin’s laugh following her, the cutting words the imp was still spewing reaching for her.

Using her magic, she propped herself against a wall. Rage and fear didn’t work for her anymore. She wasn’t the same woman she had once been after all. Then what?

Unfortunately, the trigger fell out of her hands when she grabbed it, the black diamond clinking away in the dark as Rumple’s power, full of hate, full of greed, blasted across the tunnel.

Perhaps she wasn’t going to have the option to discover it after all.

* * *

 

Emma run, following what seemed to be thunders echoing inside the tunnels, rubble and dust collecting at the edges of her eyes as she tried to distinguish something inside the darkness. The echo of a giggle could be heard and she followed that alongside with words she didn’t quite understood, didn’t quite want to do so.

* * *

 

Regina turned towards Rumple, calling for her power, the sight of Henry on her mind’s eye enough for it to spark between her fingers, another fireball surging forward. The man threw his hands up in the air, the feeling of his magic seeming to fill every pore of the woman’s body as she closed her jaw as tightly as possible, feeling her teeth hurt at the metallic scent that filled the place, electricity seeming to build in every dot of every diamond that covered the walls.

“I’m doomed.” She thought just as she started to loose conscience, her power struggling but still far of her reach.

“NO!”

A light, a dirty white-coloured one, filled the tunnel and with it she was gone, blackness covering her sight.

“NO!” She heard but it was too late and she drifted away.

* * *

 

Through everything Emma had endured, ever since a little girl and even at her teen years she had always been stubborn. Something that for others was bad and sometimes said in cruel mockery as Emma was passed from hands to hands, from foster home to foster home but what had kept her together at the end. Stubbornness was something she was good at and for that when the first blast of magic came out of her stretched hand the second Gold loomed over the figure of an almost gone Regina she didn’t stop to think about it but kept moving, her fear for the brunette keeping her moving forward until the man called for his powers and disappeared in a deep red mist not bothering to even say anything to her. Not that Emma would have listened of course, she was far too focused on the prone figure of a certain brunette, her eyelashes fluttering, struggling to keep being open but failing.

“Regina?” She whispered in the middle of the darkness, her voice full of fear. “Regina?” She repeated, her fingers touching the woman’s neck, sensing the steady yet fragile pulse. Pulse that seemed to drift away the second she looked at the woman’s face, digits curled in front of her, one last barrier.

“Damn it, Regina.” She said between what seemed to be a sob, the shards of diamond covering the walls pulsing a white steady light she looked at, unable to understand what it meant. “Regina wake up.” She called, not knowing what to do, what she was supposed to do.

The brunette’s fingers sparked, something Emma had seen already many times whenever the brunette lost control of her powers, whenever the two of them had discussed about theory Emma had never even know it existed. Looking at the tiny spark that seemed to call for her the blonde touched Regina’s wrist, finding it warm, way too warm, to the touch.

“You need to open your eyes.” She found herself whispering, knowing that they could already be in a borrowed time, that Rumplestiskin could already be very well on his way once again. “I talked with Henry, you know? He wants to have you, he told me himself. He wants you, he loves you.”

_And I also want you._

Selfish, she was selfish for wishing something like that, she knew but she wasn’t a hero, just herself and she had never been very good at following orders. Heroes and Queens could be damned and the curse itself didn’t matter anymore. Just Regina, just Henry, just the three of them. As selfish as it could be, as selfish as she felt. She was stubborn, and she wanted her.

“Please, Regina.” She whispered at the tingling diamonds as she closed her hands around Regina’s, the brunette’s name already about to escape her lips once again when she felt it. Regina’s pulse.

Around the two of them something shifted, the air turning clearer, the smell of ozone returning to her nose. Her hands burn, her whole body seemed to be warmer, her hands, clasped around Regina’s burning, tingling, glowing. And then she saw it, sparks, sparks that danced on her fingers, that linked them with Regina’s, purple and dirty white, red and gold.

And there were many things she still didn’t understood but as one last surge of power run between the two of them and Regina opened her eyes she knew the curse had finally been broken.

“Miss…?”

“Call me that one more time and we are going to have a talk.” She said before moving forward, kissing the brunette with all she had, all she wanted, all she needed.

And Regina kissed her back.

THE END

 


End file.
